The Ganymede Strain
by Amanda9
Summary: All the old players are dead, but someone has restarted the game. With a new set of rules. --Part of the Jupitor Series--
1. Missing Time

**Title: _The_ ****_Ganymede Strain  
_By:**Amanda  
**Feedback:**  
**Rating: R  
Warnings:** mild violence. Maybe a little sexual content**.  
Disclaimer:** Characters created by Chris Carter; cared for by Frank Spotnitz, Vince Gilligan and John Shiban; loved by fans. In short, I don't own them. Anderea Jupitor is all mine.  
**Series:** The Jupitor Series  
**Spoilers:** Anything X-Files and Lone Gunmen is up for grabs.  
**Summary:** All the old players are dead, but someone has restarted the game. With a new set of rules.  
**Completed:** June 15, 2008  
**Notes: **_Ganymede:_ The third, and largest, of the Galilean Satellites orbiting Jupitor. Named after the Greek youth that Zeus swept off to Mount Olympus as a cup-bearer.  
Chapter titles are from UFOlogy and paranormal books I saw at the library where I work. Missing Time is by Budd Hopkins.

* * *

**Part One: Missing Time**

Morris Fletcher stalked down the hall to his office. Not his original office of course, but one in the subbasement, across from a forgotten storage room, full of forgotten bits and pieces. He didn't expect it to be easy to come back after his less than glamorous step down, but he did expect his years of loyal service to count for something.

Maybe that's why _They_ allowed him to come back at all.

The alternative was something he didn't like to think about. No. Instead he was doing the lackey work down in the lower levels. Like some fresh-faced intern, or old, crumbling relic. Doing the things no one really cared about or took notice of. Much like him, now.

Again, that was something he didn't like to think about.

He slipped his key card through the electronic lock and stepped into his cramped, dark office: far less than half the size of his old office. Usually, it housed only an unsteady filing cabinet and desk. But now a pair of high-heeled, black leather boots propped up on his desk greeted him. His eyes followed the long line of dark denim clad legs up to the face of the woman seated behind the desk.

She didn't smile, just raised an eyebrow and waited.

There was something familiar about her, and yet a suggestion that something had changed. Hadn't everything though? He wasn't really one for remembering faces anyhow, but the soft blonde hair was something he'd typically remember. And her face; it could have been called sweet, once upon a time. Maybe even naïve.

She pulled her legs off the desk's top and leaned forward, exposing the tiniest bit of flesh from under the black tee shirt, "Don't tell me you've forgotten Fletcher."

A sly smile played at his mouth, "Well, it's not my birthday…" he turned to drop the stack of files he was holding onto the cabinet beside him.

"I'll save you the trouble, I'm not your wife's attorney either."

Sharply, he turned back to her; the humour lost on his face. He looked tired, and old, "It's hard to recognise you without the three stooges tagging along." He watched her, gauging her for a reaction. But she gave none. Her face remained stoic, but now he could see that time and stress were starting to show around her eyes. It had been years. Six years. Give or take. He was never any good with dates either. One of the many things his wife would complain about.  
"Breaking into government buildings; isn't that a little dangerous for you?" Fletcher leaned back against the filing cabinet, crossing his arms over his chest.

A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth, as if he missed a private joke, "You're so low on the totem pole no one would notice if this place caught fire. Besides," she leaned back in the chair; "Didn't you get the memo? Anderea Jupitor is dead. She was found under a turnpike last summer. Small service, but very nice. Suppose no one would call it tragic."  
He narrowed his eyes, there had to be something to why the woman in front of him was claiming to be dead. His feet shifted, weighing what possible business she could have there of all places, with him of all people, "Is that it, have you come here to kill me too?"

"You still have such an inflated sense of self," Anderea chastised him, "No, I'm here to help you."

"What help could _you_ possibly give _me_?"

"You never did know, did you?" Anderea eyed him up and down, "the night they sent you for my computer, you didn't know what you let slip through your fingers. What you almost killed," she laughed. Maybe they didn't know. Could it have been possible? That all of this might not have happened if she never contacted Richard Langly or the Lone Gunmen that lonely summer night. That nothing would have spiralled out of control?

That was something she didn't want to think about.

Fletcher continued to stare at her, two players waiting for the other to make the first move.

Anderea broke first: "A long time ago, some men started a science project of sorts that didn't quite go as they had planned. You know how these things go, people get cold feet, they grow a conscience, test subjects disappear. And there are limits to the human body, after all. But there were others who were sure they could do better the next time, they just needed one little thing, one piece – and I was that piece. The key to restarting it all. Having been such a big piece the first time around, and being silly enough to survive. Ah, but all the old players are dead now, but it seems that someone new has started up a new game, all on their own."

"And what does this little fairytale have to do with me?" Fletcher was growing impatient, and bored. Fidgety and nervous in the cramped quarters with a woman spinning government lies.

"Nothing," she replied casually, "in so much as your daughter."

"Chris?" He straightened up in alarm, "What about Chris?"  
"They have a fondness for government daughters – easier to keep tabs on them I suppose," Anderea shrugged, "Your daughter received an HPV vaccine here this year, didn't she? Funny, while public schools got a little salt water, your daughter, and those of your colleagues –."

"What'd they inject my daughter with?" he slammed his hands down on the desk, shaking the few knickknacks that littered its surface.

She cocked her head to the side, "Ever hear of Project Jupitor?"

"Now who's narcissistic?" he looked up at her with hooded eyes.  
She let out a little sigh, playing catch up always wasted time, "I'm named after It, not It after me. It was my father's ironic little joke when he tried to hide me. Seems dear old Dad didn't think it would be wise for me to go on being Anderea Hardin, not with all those white coats running around. And who would look for a girl named after something that didn't officially exist in the first place?"

"Hidden in plain sight," he motioned to her sitting in front of him.  
"Plausible deniability," she teased, a smirk tugging on the corner of her lip. "But the point is, this project involved medical experimentation. Tinkering with DNA and other fun things. Aliens," she added carefully, "And I believe you're daughter has been pulled into the restarted project."

Fletcher took a moment, watched her and considered. "Why should I trust you?"  
"What have you got to loose?" she replied quickly and calmly.

The truth of her statement hit him deep. What did he have to loose, for that matter? A washed up man in black, a lackey. No friends, no allies. No family to go home to – not that his small apartment was much of a home – not since the papers were being processed, the ink drying. "Why come all the way here? What's stopping me from picking up that phone and trading you in for a promotion?"  
She met his eyes, unwavering, "I've got nothing left to loose either."

Again, he watched her. Waited to see if she would give anything else away. She didn't. "Prove this to me," he challenged with a sharp nod of his chin.  
Anderea smiled, "I was hoping you'd say that." She rose out of the chair, and circled around the desk to meet him on the other side, "Time for you to come see how the other half live, after they're dead, of course."

(end of part one)


	2. Three Lives

****

Part Two:_ Three Lives  
_By:

Amanda  
**Chapter Completed: **July 13, 2008  
**Chapter Notes: **Title taken from the book by Martin Palmer

* * *

Anderea lead Fletcher to the back of an old brick building. Once it served as a barracks for military families, but now the residence were much less official. The shout three-story building dawned a large Alien Arms billboard on the front and catered to the few tourist who still sough out a vacation to Dreamland. The kitsch still brought in enough money to keep the boarding house running, but Anderea was much more invested in the basement door at the rear of the building, just off the isolated, sun bleached alley.

"I've been thinking," Fletcher leaned against the doorframe, as he watched Anderea needlessly fiddle with the duel locks, "If we're going to be working together here, closely together, we should do something against all this sexual tension building up between us. You know, relieve the pressure, clear our heads…"

The door suddenly swung open, and a gruff voice declared; "You'll be relieving all that sexual tension on your own there big boy."

Anderea's face lit up, "Uncle Mel! You guys made it." She flung herself around the smaller man in a tight hug.

"Barely," Melvin Frohike gave a tired groan as he returned his niece's embrace.  
"I, for one, forgot how hard it is to travel when you don't exist," John Byers pushed the door further open, ushering everyone inside.

Anderea moved quickly to embrace him as well, seemingly catching the other man off guard. "It's not that you don't exist," she gave an extra squeeze before releasing him, "You're just –"

"Dead. I know," he gave an odd little shrug if his shoulders as if still unsure of the idea.  
"That doesn't seem to slow you down any," Langly quipped from further inside the makeshift hideout. He didn't bother getting up to greet the girl, or her guest, keeping his feet comfortably propped up on the table.  
This time she shrugged, sharply, "I just have more practice at it."

"An odd experience, I'm sure," Fletcher reminded them all of his presence. "Though I thought you said they were dead?" he leaned in closer to whisper to her.  
"You must have misheard," she gave him a sly smile, moving swiftly among the other men. "I believe I said I had nothing left to lose," she replied coolly, her face again void of emotion as she walked around Langly to the small kitchenette, "I can't help how you took that." She opened the refrigerator, but paused, "What does it matter?" she turned to eye Fletcher, who still hovered around the door.

Fletcher opened his mouth like a guppy, but settled for one of his detached shrugs.  
"Besides," Frohike eyed the G-man over his wire frames, "Aren't you the one who told Anderea we were alive in the first place?"  
Fletcher raised an eyebrow, "Whoever thought that would stick? Experiments and all that."

"Alien viruses can be very protective of their hosts," Anderea announced, unscrewing the cap and taking three long gulps of bottled water. She really wasn't used to the dry New Mexico air. Not after spending her life in the Washington State area. She almost missed the damp sidewalks.

"Which works as a great segue for why the Suit is here," Frohike walked back to the dinning room-slash-kitchen, shoving Langly's feet off the table, and taking a seat.

The younger man only grunted, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.

"Hold on," Byers stopped mid-stride to join them, "Where's Jimmy?"

"He was tailing us," Anderea moved to pull out the middle chair for herself, but catching Langly's stare from the corner of her eye she decided against it. Settling, instead, for leaning back against the counter.  
"He's getting so good at being inconspicuous he lost sight of himself," Langly snorted.  
"Wait? The Big One," Fletcher gestured Jimmy's rough height with his hands, "he was following us?" he gaffed.

"The whole time!" Jimmy beamed, stepping up silently behind the older man, gaining himself a startled jump, "You even passed me in the hall," he added with his usual puppy-enthusiasm.

"Then what held you up here?" Frohike eyes him carefully, ever the teacher.

"Mrs. Johnson, across the way," he shrugged, "she wanted to tell me about her dogs." The little old lady was forever chatting up the strapping young man. Jimmy found it sweet, and didn't mind at all. He figured the woman was lonely, and could understand the need for companionship.

"You know, part of tailing someone means you're supposed to keep your eye on your mark, the whole time," Langly spoke with a snide tone.

"And I'm supposed to maintain our cover," Jimmy shot back. Long gone was the man who would sulk at their criticism. "Besides, I knew she could handle him," he clapped Fletcher on the back – an odd action that mixed friendly and threatening in one gesture.

"Not the point," Langly grumbled under his breath, but offered nothing else.  
"By the way, _Derea honey_," Jimmy continued as if there had been no interruption, "Mrs. Johnson says hello and hopes to see you again soon, she owes you another bridge lesson."

Anderea allowed herself a small smile at the shared joke. She would have to visit the widow soon for another afternoon of cards – or an afternoon of margaritas and seedy gossip as it usually ended up.

"Alright," Fletcher rubbed his shoulder where the larger man had made contact, wincing slightly, "Someone needs to start explaining all of this." He looked pointedly at the blonde woman on the other side of the table.  
"Yeah, Derea _honey_, you should explain all of this to your new friend," Langly abruptly got to his feet, abandoning his chair to stand at the farther end of the room

"Okay," Anderea frowned; any joy from the pervious moment was gone. She dropped herself into the abandoned chair, "Where do I start?"  
"Start with your death, that's always a great ice breaker." Langly sneered, his words surprisingly hard.  
"Jesus Langly," Frohike hissed in disgust.  
"I just want to know why you're all here, and why you think it has anything to do with my daughter," Fletcher dragged a chair over to the table, dropping himself into it opposite them. He didn't care about their dysfunctional family drama at the moment. He had reality television for that sort of thing.  
Anderea forced a small, tired smile onto her face, "Than I guess I do start with _my_ death: It started last summer when a young, unidentified woman was found under a DC turnpike – dead." She took a moment to clear her throat; "she had some abrasions and bruises on her wrists, ankles and abdomen--"

Langly shuffled his feet, unable to stand still. As if his skin were crawling.  
"They were far too familiar," Anderea continued, staring straight ahead at Morris Fletcher's face, "I was found that same way, in a medical lab – only I was alive."  
"Barely," Byers breathed out, sending Langly fleeing from the gathering and into the other room, safely behind a computer screen.  
"Since it was so familiar, " Frohike picked up the thread, "We had an associate at the ME's office run a blood-test for us."

"And she had the same DNA sequence in that I carry," her face had become expressionless, cold and unfamiliar, as if she were recounting a story that had nothing to do with her or any other living thing. "So we did a little creative computing; created a few new documents, changed some records. And had Jimmy claim the body."

"As her _BROTHER_," Langly added from wherever he escaped to, exposing the fact that he was still listening even if he had gone to lengths not to hear it again.  
"I posed as her adopted brother," Jimmy confirmed, "hadn't seen her in years but swore she was the Anderea that my parents brought home."

"And **our** blood records proved that," Frohike added.

"So _Anderea Jupitor_ was officially declared dead, and we gave that poor street girl a proper funeral," Anderea's voice cracked then, and she dipped her head to avoid his eyes.

"So, you were free and clear of it all. They had declared you dead and you were granted a life," Fletcher leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, "Why would you go digging into it all again?"

She looked up at him, and everything flashed through her eyes, "I had to know why and how that girl died. I had to know if I could stop it." The raw intensity, after such a void, was hard to take.

Byers slid a thin paper folder across the table, his voice sounding louder than ever before, "We did some more digging."

Fletcher opened the file and read: "Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto. What is this, a Greek lesson?"

"Or an Astronomy class," Frohike quipped.  
Still Fletcher looked confused, and annoyed. He wasn't used to being on the receiving end of shadowed language.

"It's a list of Zeus' lovers," Byers began.

"Or the Galliaen Satellites of Jupiter," Anderea finished, that sad, peculiar smile back on her face, "And, in this case, the code names for a new set of biological strains."

"All from this Project Jupiter you were talking about before?" Fletcher didn't bother hiding his scepticism.

"As far as we've been able to piece together," Byers crossed his arms over his chest, "Io would have been the purest form from the Jupiter Project, and that's what that poor girl was exposed to."  
"And that may have been what killed her," Anderea confessed with all the guilt of an estranged Catholic.  
"Finding the girl, dead, suggested that Io was a failure," Frohike continued the round table disclosure, "We had to find out what Europa was and if it was being used."

"Not to mention the who, where and how," Langly quipped; the blonde hovered just outside the main circle again, setting up a new dynamic. Everything felt as if it were off its axis.

"We were pointed in the direction of the HPV vaccines by --," Frohike cast a quick, sympathetic look over to Byers, but just as quickly went back to his statement, "by an associate."

"History has taught us not to trust _free_ government issued _vaccines_, anyway," Langly added, absentmindedly touching his bicep where the smallpox scar branded his skin.

"And that's just what we did," the oldest Gunmen finished his thought, "criss-crossed the whole country, cross checking those little syringes."

"The most we had discovered was that only about 5 of the girls were actually getting a vaccine at all," Byers released a tried sigh.

"That is, until Jimmy and I got here," Anderea broke in – they all knew what she had found there in New Mexico.  
"Wait, it was the stooges versus you and the Hulk?" Fletcher couldn't keep the amused smile from his face.

"No," she was quick to clarify, "originally it was Yves, Jimmy and I. But she left about a month in." She offered Jimmy a sad, little smile; "Old habits die hard."

"That's why we changed our cover story. Newlyweds are far less creepy than a brother and sister who share a one room apartment," he shrugged.

"But, by the time we got settled here, half the inoculations had already taken place," the blonde woman looked over at Fletcher, "Unfortunately, your daughter was one of those half."

"Is that all you're basing this on? Some amateur testing and a game of house?"

"With all due respect _agent_ Fletcher," Byers rose to his feet, a rare edge of anger flaring up, "We've become a group of experts on this subject."

"And if your daughter's name hadn't been on that list, we never would have contacted you at all."

"Still don't think we should have," Langly added, after all the man had done nothing but screw them over in the past.

"But I thought you might care enough about your daughter to help," Anderea defended her insistence that they bring Fletcher in on this. That they might actually need him.

Fletcher's shoulders sagged, "What do you need from me?"

A small, satisfied smile curved Anderea's mouth. She knew, deep down, he'd want to be a part of this. That he'd need to be. "For starters, we're gonna need a blood sample."

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back; they didn't know Chris. "I can't just walk up to my daughter and demand a vile of her blood."  
"No," she agreed, "But I think we'll give that a shot."

(End of part two)


	3. Going Within

****

Part Three: _Going Within  
_By:

Amanda  
**Chapter Completed: **August 20, 2008  
**Chapter Notes: **Title taken from the book by Shirley Maclaine

* * *

Anderea let out a sigh.

It was strange trying to fit one of Byers' suit jackets over her feminine frame. "Makes me wish I hadn't cut off all my hair in Phoenix," she ran her fingers through the blonde bob that had replaced the long wavy locks she used to wear. A cut she regretted the moment Byers first saw her.

"You did what you needed to," Byers replied, choosing the right tie to match her disguise. "Just like Langly did what he needed to," he gently prodded, offering a midnight blue tie – the closest thing he had to black.  
"John, please," she turned to face him, "not another '_what Ree did_' discussion. Okay?" She took the offered scrap of silk and laid it under her shirt collar. "He did what he did, and here we are now," she offered him a smile; the kind that claimed everything was fine, but never really reached her eyes.

"I was just --"

"Being his friend, I know," she fumbled with her tie, unable to master the task.

He covered her hands with his, stilling them and forcing her to look at him, "And yours."

She dropped her hands and he smiled, expertly tying a Windsor knot around her neck.

"Thank you John," she smiled back at him, this time actual contentment colouring her face. She was so thankful to have them back in her life. It had been a long stretch of months when their little rag-tag group had been separated by this search, and just after the threat that they had been severed permanently.

"Hey, how's our little MIB doing?" Frohike poked his head into the small room, designated by a less than fashionable hanging curtain.  
Anderea held her arms out to he side, allowing her uncle to inspect the getup: She wore Byers' suit jacket and tie, paired with her own dress shirt and black skirt they all hoped would pass as part of the suit. Seeing the black stilettos on her feet, Frohike figured they were something else Yves had left behind.

He nodded.

She smoothed her hands over her hair again in a nervous habit, trying to maintain the harsh edge of the cut, "But I wish I still had my hair."  
Frohike ran his hand over his own head, chuckling, "Yeah, me too darlin'. But let's get you set up with some surveillance."

"There's no way this'll work," Fletcher declared once Anderea stepped out into the main room, "Have you seen the women that work in our department? She looks too good, no one will buy it."

"Than you'll have to sell it," Anderea challenged, clipping an ID badge to her shirt. It proclaimed her to be Agent Jane Daut-Porier, in from an undisclosed field office.

"And Ms. Daut-Porier is now in the system," Langly announced, leaning back from the computer. They had set up a personal history – Langly had insisted she be a widow, as if it fulfilled some personal vendetta, or proved some point he had been desperate to make.  
_"Fewer loose ends,"_ Byers eventually agreed, and so the story was set.

"Even your director has a memo buried on his hard drive about her arrival," Langly told Fletcher; his pride was obvious at infiltrating the secret service, again. One would think the government would learn from past experiences.

"Why so elaborate? You guys rusty?" the agent scoffed at the dog and pony show they were giving.

"Once I get the sample, I'm going to need a lab – and I imagine the government has a pretty good on right here," Anderea replied smugly. "I've got to make myself look at home there."

"No one will question it," Frohike insisted, "but we've still got to get our girl wired up." He took hold of Anderea and pulled her over toward the computer terminal set up next to a worktable, littered with pieces of wire and plastic.  
Fletcher watched with detached amusement as two of the gunmen worked to hide an arrangement of surveillance devices on her person: a wireless transmitter disguised as her necklace pendant, a video camera on her tie clip and a voice recorder under her shirt, clinging to her bra.

Quite obviously was Langly standing back from the action, removed from the whole experience; carefully not paying the same attention to the process as Fletcher was.

"Things seem a little cold between them," Fletcher commented, pointing out the space between Anderea and Langly as they stood, pointedly, opposite each other, ignoring each other. Tensely, with their back to the other.  
Jimmy shrugged, "They went on a _break_."

"How very Ross and Rachel of them," Fletcher quipped, getting a confused head tilt from Jimmy. "Friends. Really big deal in the nineties. _I'll be there for you_," he scrambled to put the pieces together for the other man, but gave up rolling his eyes. "So, she finally wised up and ditched the geek, huh?"

Jimmy gave a sad, soulful shake of his head; "Langly broke it off with her. Not too long after we buried that other girl too."

"Hmm," Fletcher watched them fiddle and fawn over Anderea, "Interesting."

"Things have been weird around ever since," Jimmy kept his wounded puppy expression.  
"No matter how much we expect it, things never stay the same," absentmindedly Fletcher's fingers moved to the ring finger of his left hand, finding it naked. He balled his fists and looked back at the group, "Let's get this going."

XxXxXxXxX

"I heard about things going south between you and the hippie," Fletcher pulled his black car to a stop in front of his – his wife's – house. "I know now frustrating that can be, and if you ever need…" his hand twitched in the direction of her knee.  
Anderea kept her gaze steady out the front windshield, her voice was firm, "You lay one finger on me, and I'll break it off your body."

"That's just what I mean," instead he put his hand on the door handle, "You're way too tense." He slipped out of the car and waited for Anderea to follow suit.

A moment later she had fallen in step with him, doing her best Dana Scully impression in a pair of heels.

"I hope you have a plan," he cast her a glance before ringing the doorbell he installed – four hours on a hot Sunday afternoon, thank you very much – and waited.

"I thought I'd let you wing it," she gave him a teasing smile before the door opened.

A man, who could have been in his mid-forties, stood there; proud and dignified as if he had more of a reason to be there than the man who actually bought, and owned, the house. He looked them over as if examining every last inch of them.

Anderea shuddered.

"Morris, I though we all agreed it would be easier if you announced your little visits."

Fletcher slathered on a shit-eating grin, "No doc, I think it was you and Johan who came to that conclusion. Besides, we're here to speak with Chris."

The aforementioned doctor turned his attention back to Anderea. His eyes moved over her in a clinical manner, inspecting her for frailties and other signs of weakness.  
She fought to maintain a steady stare, but faltered, dropping her eyes to the ground. She felt uncomfortably exposed under the scrutiny. It was as if the man could see something about her that she desperately wanted to hide.

He turned back to Fletcher, "I'll see if she'll come down. I can't guarantee that she'll want to of course." He closed the door, not bothering to ask them inside to wait. Or even to wait at all.

"I don't like him," Anderea let loose the shudder she was fighting to keep under control.  
"Imagine how I feel," Fletcher gritted his teeth, "He's sleeping with my wife."

She offered him a sympathetic smile, and was about to embark some platitude of comfort when the door swung open again.

"Dad?" Chris stood there; seemingly annoyed about being summoned away from whatever else she had been doing, but also obviously curious about why. "Dr. Reily said you were here."

A little light lit in Fletcher's face, but he quickly buried it in his usual façade. "We needed to speak with you," he motioned toward the woman on his left, as if she had just materialised.

Anderea smiled, "Agent Jane Daut-Porier," offering her hand for the girl to shake.  
Chris looked her up and down, then turned back to her father, "About what?"

Anderea deflated: maybe she wouldn't be able to pull this off. If she couldn't get past Fletcher's daughter, what chance did she have against actual agents, in an actual government complex?

Feltcher, on the other hand, smiled. He knew his daughter, and knew she wasn't going to make this easy. She never did. "Agent Daut-Porier is here looking into those vaccines some of you girls were given," for the first time in his life, the easiest lie was the truth.

"Why?" Chris knotted her brows, "Dr. Reily said it was fine. In fact, he insisted I get the damn thing."

Fletcher twitched at the mention of the man his wife was sleeping with in regards to his daughter's health. As if it was any of that man's business. As if he had any right.

Anderea's interest perked up, "He insisted you get the HPV vaccine from here?"

"Yeah," the girl shrugged, "hurt like a bitch too." She raised her shirtsleeve to reveal a pink and purple circular bruise. "Said this discoloration was normal too…" for the first time she looked up at Anderea like she had any kind of authority, or value, as the woman inspected the spot. "Is it? Normal I mean?"

The blonde, pseudo-agent carefully pressed the skin around the injection site; it was hot to the touch, but otherwise seemed normal. But this was her best chance to get what she wanted from the girl. She looked up to meet her eyes, "I'm gonna need a blood sample."

Chris jerked away, "Why?"

"We want to make sure we're giving the very best to our future," Anderea lied, feeling the arrogance of her father course through her veins like never before, "A bad batch of the vaccine was released, and we want to make sure our girls didn't get it."

The younger watched the older woman with the same narrowed eyes as her father, but didn't see anything that displeased her. "Alright," she slowly agreed, clearly still not one hundred percent sure about the need for such a test, "You gonna stab me here, or what?"  
"Oh no," Anderea let her façade slip with a smile, "We'll have to take you down to the complex."

For a moment, she was sure this was going to be easy.

"Awe," Chris turned bitterly to her father, "take your daughter to work day. I think I've out-grown any interest in that." Visibly, Fletcher twitched at the sharpness of her words, "Besides, I'm sure I've got more important, college related things to do."  
"Like finally picking a major?" for a moment, Morris Fletcher looked human – just a man, arguing with his daughter.

"Dr. Reily says I shouldn't rush into anything," Chris snipped back.

"Of course he did, he's not paying for it," he raged at the house, as though if he tried hard enough, he could bring it all down with mere will.

"That's all it is to you: Money!"

Anderea saw her moment slipping by. She was about to lose her chance for proof to a family scuffle. "We could come up with an agreement. A financial agreement."

Chris' eyes lit up; Fletcher threw his hands up in frustration.

"That is, of course," Anderea spoke up, "after you've completed your end of the deal."

The girl mulled it over for am moment, then nodded. "I'll just go grab my stuff so we can get this over with." She nodded toward the house before ducking inside.

Fletcher just stared at Anderea.

"What?"

"What do you plan on paying my daughter?"

"I won't have to," she announced with a confidence she wasn't sure about, "once she hears about what's going on, she won't worry about being paid."

Fletcher laughed.

"After all," she straightened her suit jacket, "I was right about you." She offered him a smug, little smile.

The front window blinds shifted back into position, with the slightest flutter. Dr. Philip Reily slipped back into the house.


End file.
